4 changes coming to Social Security in 2020

[mfcorey1]

https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/retirement/4-changes-coming-to-social-security-in-2020/ar-BBZ3jB6?li=BBnb7Kz&ocid=mailsignout

If you’re one of almost 69 million Americans who receive Social Security or Supplemental Security Income (SSI) benefits, you’ll notice a small change in your monthly check this year.

More than 63 million beneficiaries will receive a 1.6% cost-of-living adjustment (COLA) this month. The 8 million SSI beneficiaries received their COLA on Dec. 31, 2019.

Put another way: The average monthly benefit for all retired workers will rise from $1,479 to $1,503 this month. And the average monthly benefit for couples who both receive benefits will rise from $2,491 to $2,531.


That’s one of many changes beneficiaries and would-be beneficiaries can expect in 2020. Here are some others:

Earnings subject to Social Security tax
The maximum amount of earnings subject to the Social Security tax will increase from $132,900 in 2019 to $137,700 in 2020. To be fair, this increase affects just 11.8 million of the 171 million workers who are covered under Social Security. But that increase, according to David Freitag, a financial planning consultant with MassMutual, could be a bit of a surprise for the 7% of workers who will have to pay about $298 more of their wages into Social Security in 2020 than in 2019.

[DURHAM D]

1. It irks me that spouses who never earned wages and never paid in

receive benefits anyway based on the working spouse's income.

iows - If a retired working spouse receives $2,600 a month the spouse who never worked receives half of that amount - $1,300.

[marybourg]

2. Those spouses were required by the mores of the time

to stay at home, keeping house and raising the next generation of workers. Some spouses died young. Some people become unable to work. Would you have them begging in the streets. Many of us older dems fought long and hard for these spousal benefits and we are not ready to relinquish them.

[DURHAM D]

4. Only your first sentence applies to my issue.

Also, the SS benefits have never been adjusted to address the fact most families have two workers and they don't receive the benefits of double contributions.

[Native]

3. I think it is more than fair!

this is probably about the only way that working in the home as a stay-at-home parent is ever compensated by our government. people forget that there are still many women alive today who weren't allowed to work or couldn't get hired even if their husbands wanted them to work. it wasn't until 1974 that women were even allowed to get credit cards in their own names. i managed a fairly hefty pension fund for a large hospital, and employers are required to get an employee's spouse's signature whenever an employee has decided to forgo a spousal benefit in the event of their death. reason for this requirement is that more often than not husbands would screw over their wives, stay-at-home wives, by electing a higher payout amount that would forgo any beneficiary payments (unbeknownst to the spouse) upon their deaths. these women would then be left with no money other than whatever they could get from social security. a lot of greedy SOBs out there.